...No soldier should Drink any water without it Being Boiled...©

 

Pots and pans to boil your drinking water in, which might have been found in a late 18th or early 19th century kitchen, photograph by the Author.

 

Throughout all of human history and in fact, until as recently as the very end of the 19^th and the beginning of 20^th century, with the acceptance of the Germ Theory and the establishment of municipal water facilities and the mass disinfection of water, water borne diseases such as dysentery or diarrhea, (diseases which were known as “bloody flux” or “quickstep”), cholera and typhoid fever (or “camp fever”), killed thousands¹. 

 

For example, during the American Civil War, twice as many soldiers died from illness, as died of battle wounds.  Of the illnesses, dysentery and diarrhea were the leading cause of death, killing 45,000 out of the 2 million soldiers serving in the Civil War, followed by typhoid fever and malaria². 

 

Dysentery...Bloody Flux...Cholera...Typhoid Fever...Bad Water!

 

An illustration from the Field Artillery Manual, 1928, page XXX, 4-5.

Bacterial dysentery and diarrhea are caused by shigella, campylobacter, or salmonella³ bacteria, and all of these can be found in wells, rivers and other water sources that have been polluted with human feces.  The symptoms of diarrhea are frequent and watery stools which can cause shock and death if the body’s fluids and electrolytes are not replaced, dysentery has the same symptoms, except with bloody stools.  It not just bad water, house flies also can also spread these bacteria when the hairs on their legs encounter bacteria and later, human food.  Flies also spread this disease by feeding on infected human feces and then vomiting or defecating on human food stuffs.  Amoebic dysentery is caused by the parasitic protozoa, entamoeba histolytica, which can be found in polluted water, and has the same symptoms as bacterial dysentery and diarrhea.

 

“Young man suffering from dysentery”, by Baumgartner, Abb 35, 1929, page 128, from Wikimedia, HERE.

Cholera is an acute diarrhea with a high mortality and is caused by the bacteria vibrato cholera, which can be found in contaminated water.  Cholera spread worldwide after 1817, due to its accidental transport in the bilge water of ships involved in trade with the Indian subcontinent.

 

Typhoid fever is caused by the salmonella typhi bacteria, and the symptoms of this disease include a fever, headache, either constipation or diarrhea, chills and sometimes a skin rash.  It is caused by consuming food or water that has been contaminated with feces that have been infected with salmonella typhi bacteria.  During the American Civil War if you developed typhoid fever, you had a one in three chance of dying, and over 30,000 soldiers in both the Union and Confederate Armies died of it during the American Civil War⁴. 

 

What has happened thousands of times from drinking bad water, “The Dance of Death”, 1493, by Michael Wolgemut, from the Nuremberg Chronicle of Hartmann Schedel, HERE.

To make it pure and wholesome...by boiling

 

A Spanish proverb from A New Dictionary, Spanish and English, and English and Spanish, by Captain John Stevens, 1726, page AGU to AGU.

As the Spanish proverb “água mala hervída y coláda” or “bad water must be boil’d and strain’d” from a 1726 dictionary shows, it has been known for a long time that letting drinking water settle or straining it and then boiling would make it wholesome or in modern terms, disinfect it.  In fact, it was known as far back as Hippocrates⁵, a physician who lived in Ancient Greece from 460 BCE to 370 BCE, and who recommended boiling and then straining water through a cloth filter.

 

An excerpt from Hippocrates Upon Air, Water and Situation, Francis Clifton, M.D., page 13.

Even though Hippocrates, whose four humors theory was influential in the development of western medicine, recommended boiling and then straining water to disinfect it, disinfecting water by boiling was virtually ignored by most people prior the 18th and 19^th centuries.  However, by the late 18th century, with the development of the microscope and the discovery of “animalcules” by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in the 1670s⁶ and particularly with the research into scurvy by James Lind, boiling water to disinfect it became more and more accepted, with various authorities beginning to recommend it.

 

An excerpt from A treatise on the Scurvy, John Hayman, 1791, page 18.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, boiling drinking water was the only effective way our ancestors had of disinfecting it, although other methods were tried... 

 

But what about ginger...?

 

Historically, ginger root, zingiber officinale, was thought to disinfect water, as shown by Samuel Warner’s 1759 journal entry “...No soldier should Drink any water without it Being Boild, Except he had ginger in it”.  This was perhaps due to ginger’s pungent taste and smell, which would have covered the taste and smell of bad water, however, the active ingredients in ginger, when mixed with water do not kill dangerous pathogens⁷.

 

Vinegar perhaps...

 

An excerpt from A Mental Museum, for the Rising Generation, by Jesse Torrey, Jun.; 1829, page 199-200.

During the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries it was thought that by adding a little vinegar to bad water it would make it fit for drinking.  Today however, the United States Environmental Protection Agency does not list vinegar as a water treatment that they consider acceptable⁸.  Vinegar is a solution of between 5-8% acetic acid by volume, and is mostly water, with some trace elements.  While it is true that acetic acid, in the concentrations equal to that found in vinegar, can inhibit bacterial growth, by adding it to your drinking water and diluting it even more, it would become ineffective.

 

Adding spirits or wine to it?

 

An excerpt from Counsel for Emigrants, and Interesting Information from Numerous Sources, 1834, pages 79-80.

While it is true that alcohol will kill bacteria and other pathogens, according to the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention, to kill viruses and bacteria, the concentration of ethanol, also known as ethyl alcohol, the type of alcohol that we drink, must be between 60% to 90%, which leaves very little room for the water⁹.

 

So just to be safe...

 

An excerpt from the Field Artillery Manual, 1928, page XXXIII, 16-18.

Today, unlike the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, there are several ways, which actually work, to filter or disinfect water: chemicals, UV light, filtration or boiling.  So, in the wilderness, if you are not positive that your water is pure, and who can be 100% positive, and you can filter it or disinfect it, then filter it or disinfect it¹⁰!  The CDC considers boiling water to be the best way to disinfect it.  For more on water disinfection and boiling read “Water Disinfection: When is boiled, boiled enough…? ©”, HERE, “True or False, You Should Drink Water From The Spring Where Horses Drink?©”, HERE, and “Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble...The 5 Stages of Boiling©”, HERE.

 

An excerpt from the Field Artillery Manual, 1928, page XXX, 6-7.

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “The Top Ten Wilderness Survival Skills...Number Seven©”, where we will talk about signaling for help!

 

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at BandanaMan Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Notes

 

¹ The first use of chlorine to disinfect water in a municipal facility was in England in 1897, followed in the United States in Jersey City, New Jersey and Chicago, Illinois in 1915.  The filtration and disinfection of water during the 20^th century is responsible for an almost 50% reduction in overall mortality, a 75% reduction in infant mortality and a nearly 67% reduction in child mortality due to water borne pathogens and illnesses.

 

From “John Snow, Cholera, the Broad Street Pump; Waterborne Diseases Then and Now”, by Theodore H. Tulchinsky, MD MPH.

 

² From “Nor Any Drop To Drink”, by Ann Chandonnet.

 

³ Not the salmonella that causes Typhoid Fever, according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) that is caused by caused by salmonella typhi bacteria.

 

⁴ From “American Civil War Disease Facts”, American Civil War Facts.

 

⁵ Hippocrates is also known as Hippocrates of Kos or Hippocrates II.

 

⁶ Animalcules is the Latin word for “little animals”.  The word was invented by Leeuwenhoek and is an old term for microscopic organisms that included bacteria, protozoans, and very small animals and refers to the microorganisms he observed in rainwater.

 

⁷ “Antibacterial activity and medicinal properties of Ginger (Zingiber officinale)”, by Samuel Malu, et al.

 

⁸ “Can Vinegar Sterilize, Disinfect, Or Purify Water?”, by Russell Singleton,

 

⁹ Center for Disease Control and Prevention, “Chemical Disinfectants”

 

¹⁰ “A doctor can fix giardia, but he can’t fix dead”, or “doctors can cure a lot of things, but they can’t cure dead” is a survival refrain that Peter Kummerfeldt teaches, and I have echoed since I first read it in 2005.  When worst comes to worst, and you are facing dehydration, drinking actually or potentially infected water is better than not drinking any water at all. 

 

This might seem like common sense, however as my daughter says, “what is common sense to one person, isn’t common sense to another; common sense only exists in the context of your environment”.  In the 1990’s two hikers in the Grand Canyon, ran out of water and didn’t want to refill their water bottles at a late season creek-bed pothole, teeming with tadpoles and other life: one of the hikers later died of dehydration and the other barely survived.

 

Peter Kummerfeldt is a 71 year old survival expert who graduated from the Air Force Survival Instructor Training School and later was an instructor at the Basic Survival School, in Spokane, Washington, in the Arctic Survival School, in Fairbanks, Alaska, and the Jungle Survival School, in the Republic of the Philippines.  Also, Peter was the Survival Training Director for the United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, for twelve years (from Peter Kummerfeldt’s biography at “OutdoorSafe with Peter Kummerfeldt”, found HERE)

 

“Canyon Missteps, Lesson: Respect For Danger” Popular Mechanics, Volume 182, Number 8, August 2005, page 67,

 

 

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